Post by faskew on Sept 14, 2019 7:42:29 GMT -5

The article twists a real thing into a false conclusion. Yes, states need to constantly keep their voter registration roles up-to-date. But the vast majority of problems are people who move and don't update their registration with their new address, then they try to vote in their old districts, which is illegal. The second most common thing is companies that are hired to go to nursing homes and register old folk. Then they turn in an absentee ballot for those people with whoever paid them getting the votes. Also illegal.

Keep in mind that in 2016 both of these things were done by Trump supporters. I think it was Alabama, but one Deep South state prosecuted a company that was mass-producing nursing home votes for the Republican party. And at least one Trump supporter went to jail for illegal voting. The far-right has a myth that there are millions of illegal aliens voting for Dems around the nation and it's just not true. And they never mention the illegal voting done by and for Republicans. 8-<

Post by faskew on Sept 15, 2019 8:56:23 GMT -5

Also keep in mind that most of the state voter laws and records are run by Republicans.

It's not that easy for some people to get IDs. In particular, minority and rural folk. Texas has 254 counties and many of them are almost empty. So the gov has shut down the Department of Public Safety offices in those are, the place people have to go to get ID. In some cases people might have to travel 50-100 miles to get ID. Difficult for those without cars or who can't get a day off work M-F, when the DPS offices are open. Other people have problems because they don't have good paperwork. Maybe you need a copy of your birth certificate to get a state ID, but you don't have one. In some of those rural areas, home births wouldn't be recorded at the county level and so the person can never prove that they are a citizen. Other small-town courthouses burned down and took the birth records with them.

In any case, Reps often use "voter ID" as a way to kick Dems off the voter rolls and then make them have to prove that they are citizens. In Texas and parts of the Deep South, it's not unusual for Dems to show up to vote and discover that they have been kicked off the voter rolls by Rep officials and, since it's election day, there's no time to go through the red tape to prove they're citizens. Culling Dems off rolls combined with gerrymandering keeps Reps in power in Texas, even though they are in the minority. No Dem has been elected to a statewide office in Texas since 1984 or so. Which is why I'm a registered Republican. I figure the elections are rigged to favor Reps, so I want to get the best Rep in that I can. (I wish they'd drop the whole party thing and let everyone vote for the individual. But that will never happen. Too much money at stake.)

Anyway, I personally have no problem with voter ID, so long as it's easy to get ID and it's not used by Reps to keep Dems from voting. Unfortunately, that's not the current situation, at least in some parts of the US, so the system needs some fixing before the Dems will stop complaining.

Post by debutante on Sept 15, 2019 14:01:07 GMT -5

Hi Fred:

All kidding aside, those voters you're talking about can just as well vote Republican. What makes Dems think they would be affected and not Republicans? No...it doesn't make sense because you can't really predict how anyone will vote unless they got their job through party affiliations.

Post by faskew on Sept 16, 2019 8:30:22 GMT -5

Not sure how everyone else does it, but in Texas you can only vote in either the Rep or Dem primary, but not both. To make sure you don't do both, they keep track of your registration and in which primary you voted. Then they use that data to gerrymander the districts so that there are more Republicans in as many districts as they can tweak. And they only enforce serious voter ID on the left-over Dem districts.

For example, Austin (mostly Dem) is divided into 6 districts that look like a giant octopus. One tentacle runs several hundred miles north to just west of Ft. Worth, one runs several hundred miles east to north of Houston. And so on. Since they can't overwhelm ALL the Dems this way, the 6th district combines south Austin and north San Antonio (90 miles south) and is where most of the cities Dems are dumped. Used to be represented by two different Dems (1 from Austin and 1 from SA), but now only 1 Dem for both. Anyway, the 5 Republican-dominant districts get casual voter ID checks, but the Democratic dominant districts get detailed checking, plus random dumping of citizen voters off the rolls at the last minute without informing them. So it's possible to be a citizen, a registered voter, have a photo ID yet still be kicked off the list if you voted in the Dem primary. (Yeah, you have photo ID, but can you prove you're a citizen while waiting in line to vote? Probably not. After all, just having a driver's license doesn't mean you're a citizen and eligible to vote. You need a copy of your birth certificate. And copies are easy to fake, so maybe you should come back after the election with the original.)

Much of this trickery has been around for generations. Deep South officials used to require blacks to pass a reading test to be able to vote, which whites didn't have to take. And so on. Gerrymandering for race has been outlawed, but gerrymandering for political party seems to be doing quite well. Like you say, no one can predict who you'll vote for, but by culling the voter rolls of those who voted Dem in the primaries, you increase the odds that Reps will win. 8-<

Oh, and even if the Reps lose, they will simply claim that there were millions of illegal votes for the Dems. No need for evidence - the claim is what the base wants to hear, so they will believe it. If Trump loses in Nov 2020, he may claim fraud and refuse to leave office. Of course, the ONLY widespread national election fraud that has been proved was the Russian meddling FOR Trump in 2016. And Russia has already begun it's efforts again. They've been caught trying to hack into voting machines in the US already, and our intelligence agencies expect a massive surge of pro-Trump fake social media and pro-Trump voting machine hacks in Nov 2020.

It's "heads I win; tails you lose." If Trump wins, then the election was honest. If Trump loses, then the election was a fraud. Reps come out on top whatever happens. 8-<

Post by debutante on Sept 17, 2019 18:17:09 GMT -5

Hi Fred:

Well, in Chicago the Dems have been cheating for decades. I remember one year in particular my Dad got into a huge argument with his mom because two new trees showed up in front of the house (it was a two storey--we lived upstairs). He asked her where she got them because he knew he didn't take her to buy them and his sisters wouldn't drive into the city for something like that.

It turned out she was given these two trees by a campaigner in exchange for her promise to vote for whoever it was that was running that cycle. My Dad asked her if she'd lost her mind because that was illegal. She truthfully didn't know -- she was in her eighties and when the guy asked her what she needed she just asked for two trees.

But that wasn't uncommon in the old neighborhood. Lots of "favors" in exchange for votes. Mostly, they were for the old-timers who truly didn't know any better.

Post by faskew on Sept 18, 2019 8:03:57 GMT -5

Yep, all the political parties have been cheating ever since we began having elections. Just explaining how the Reps are using voter ID to cheat in modern times. And, of course, when they lose any elections they'll claim it was all do to illegal aliens.

The Electoral College is going to be another hotspot in 2020. The Dems have won the popular vote in 6 of the the last 7 presidential elections, but have only won 4 out of 7 of the Electoral College votes. So they are making noises about getting rid of the Electoral College. Republicans, being the minority party, don't want any changes. (Of course, if the numbers were reversed it would be the Reps demanding that the popular vote be the decider.)

Small states say that they need the Electoral College so that the two parties will pay attention to them. But that’s a false belief. The way it works now is that parties sort the states based on those that are guaranteed safe for them, those that are guaranteed against them and those that might go either way. Then they sort the swing states by population and spend their money and time on those states with the most Electoral votes. For example, in 2016 70% of all campaigning took place in just six states. In other words, if you live in a small state, you will be ignored whether or not there is an Electoral College. And if you live in a state that's safe for one party or the other, you will also be ignored, even if it's a large state.

So right now, 10 or fewer states will decide who the next president will be. And those are where the parties will be spending their time and money.

Interestingly enough, Texas may be one of the swing states this time. Way too early to be sure, but the signs are there. And with 38 Electoral votes, second only to California, it's a very valuable prize. Texas is one of the all-or-nothing states. Whichever presidential candidate wins by even a single vote gets all 38 Electoral votes. Consider 2016. If Clinton had added Texas to her Electoral vote tally, she would have won both the popular and Electoral vote. It's possible that will be true in 2020 - whoever wins Texas may win pres. I expect to see some serious nastiness here next year. 8-<